My Story of Corporate Environmental Responsibilty.

"It's My Park Day"- volunteering in Austin to support open green spaces

Last year on one soggy Saturday morning I discovered the real benefit of supporting open green spaces. I volunteer for our Pearson Austin's Green Team and we volunteered for Austin’s “It’s My Park Day”. I have been deeply involved in protecting wilderness outside of Austin, but it took the call to action from our Green Team at Pearson to pry me away from my usual Saturday activities to join a local improvement project at Walnut Creek Park. What I learned was that protecting and enhancing urban green space is just as vital as preserving large-scale natural landscapes. Both have benefits in common, but this project kindled a profound recognition of the importance of urban open space and the kind of community engagement that the Green Team seeks to accomplish.

On that day, I arrived a bit late and followed a trail to where a team was working on improving a stream crossing on a hike and bike trail.  It was really hard work- excavating the stream banks, transporting and placing large cut limestone pavers to reduce erosion and widen the stream crossing for a trail that gets a lot of use by walkers, joggers, and mountain bikers. The physical demands are very similar to other trail work that I have done on National Wildlife Refuge lands; carrying heavy materials, using shovels and other “tools of the trade” to make the terrain contour to the desired purpose.  The fundamental difference is that making local, urban lands open to recreational use serves a totally different, yet virtually identical objective.Wildlands are much less accessible for city folk. Recreational use of state and national parks, wildlife preserves and refuges, generally speaking, is more along the lines of day trips or vacations; destination travel. Often there are strict rules of compliance to protect the resources, such as prohibition of bicycles, dogs, even trail running.  Open spaces like the Walnut Creek Park Trail, on the other hand, serve large urban populations, right where we live, attracting hundreds or thousands of people on any given day.

While it is common for some to judge a passion for protecting open spaces for recreation and wildlife preservation as “tree hugging” or “anti-development”, the truth is that these efforts enhance the quality of life in communities across the US.  In fact, volunteer efforts to improve parks and recreational land are one of the best examples of fiscal restraint at any level of government. In the case of the bike trail work that was done that day, the efforts were led by a local mountain biking club. The most invested users of the resource naturally have the highest commitment to achieving the goals and completing the project successfully. Having safer, more accessible, and more environmentally sustainable trail systems in our local parks benefits everyone. That same dynamic exists in cities and towns everywhere that we work. The Austin “It’s My Park Day” program consisted of 3000 volunteers working 10,000 hours to complete 100 park and greenbelt projects throughout the city.  That is equivalent to five full-time staff, or a quarter of a million dollars of value for our parks.  On lands that make up our National wildlife refuge system, over 20% of all work done of our 560 refuges is accomplished by volunteers, saving millions of dollars each year.

The Green Team provides opportunities and a gentle nudge towards getting involved in our communities. Wherever you live, there is work to be done, goals to accomplish, and long term pride in helping build sustainable communities. The next time the Green Team calls, take them up on the offer to support the great outdoors in your community.